Christmas 2010

This year was the first time we have done Christmas alone. While we missed our families and all the fun we always have with them during the holidays, it was very nice to be able to keep the holiday relaxed and slow-paced, especially for uber-prego me (I am plodding and groaning everywhere I go now).
Highlights of the season include:

Driving past Christmas lights every time we were in the car after dark.

Listening to Christmas music and teaching Hazel about Baby Jesus.

Making gingerbread houses. As we were working on them, Todd mentioned how my brothers fill the insides of their houses with a candy stash for later. Once Hazel heard that, every piece she picked up went inside her house, instead of on it, and there was nothing we could do to talk her out of it.
Having cheese fondue for Christmas Eve dinner. We may have to make this an annual tradition.
Sleeping in until 8:00. Gotta soak that up while we've got it.

Finding the stockings Santa left us. Hazel requested suckers and was so thrilled to find dum-dums (and a candy cane) in her stocking!
Hazel hit present overkill about two-thirds of the way through and refused to open all her gifts. We stashed a few under the bed for later. She had not yet unveiled Santa's Big Deal gift, though, so we waited until after lunch and then led her back to it. A play kitchen! Super huge hit. She plays with it all day, every day.
And making it through Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Todd's birthday (the 26th) without going into labor. Phew!

Todd's still really hoping I can "hold him in" and give our baby a January birthday, but dude, I'm dying here. Now that we're past the holidays, I want him OUT! We shall see. Meanwhile, I'm turning into a super grump and Todd thinks it's hilarious. At least he's not getting mad at me for biting his head off. Seriously, there have been a few times in the past few days that I've majorly snapped at him, followed by a still and solemn silence, and then both of us have burst out laughing, wondering where that came from. I'm so miserable.

Hazel Hearts Shepherds

Hazel learned about the shepherds coming to see Baby Jesus at nursery yesterday. It ensued in a day-long preoccupation with shepherds.

"Shepherds come see me?"

"Shepherds hold me night-night?"

"Shepherds come? Pink shepherds."

But the best was when she fell on her bum and got an owie.

"Shepherds kiss my bum bum?"

Project Complete

Ah. It's so nice to know what you're going to name your baby before they're born. It certainly makes it easier to get ahead on projects. Look what I just finished:Hazel's name letters weren't done until two months after she was born.

Looking at these, I feel relieved. I wasn't sure how to take a craft and make it masculine, but I definitely didn't want Jack to have girly letters. I think it turned out well. Phew.

He and Hazel will be sharing a room. It's slowly metamorphosing into a room for a girl and a boy to share. When we moved Hazel to a big girl bed, she got a green polka dot comforter. Dots are girly, but green is good for all. We're getting there. I think it's just going to have to be okay that there are pink things in there, as well as blue. Here's Jack's small segment of the room:He's going to be in a bassinet in mine and Todd's room for the first little while. By little while, I hope I mean just a few weeks. I do not sleep well sharing a room with a wee one. We"ll have to take it a day at a time, though, and see how all four of us adjust.

Meanwhile, I'm dilated to a two, but hoping to make it til January before Jack's born. We'd like to keep him spaced a little bit from Christmas. So, watch, he'll be born on Christmas Day, right? We'll see.

Quick Update

Hazel's latest:
Constantly playing in her "house," this huge Amazon box a Christmas gift came inAsking for "no pants" after diaper changes
Stickers, stickers everywhere (but freaks out if she finds one on herself as she's falling asleep!)
Independent shoe changes, rotating through the church shoes, princess shoes, and the rain boots
Perusing the Target gift idea magazine, exclaiming, "I love this!" at the toy kitchens (guess we'd better let Santa know what she's obsessing over...)

Todd's latest:
Promoted to Captain! Yes, you may bow as you approach him.
Being Hazel's favorite, since he has both energy and a lap and I do not
Has high hopes we can SCUBA certify for date night mere days after the baby is born

Angie's latest:
I'm huge and battling heartburn nightly now. Darn it. 19 days to my due date.
I bought a larger ring to wear since I'm too swollen to wear my wedding ring. But it's too big for my ring finger and too small for my middle finger, so it's actually more of an annoyance than a help. Half an hour ago, it slipped right off my finger as I tossed something in the trash. I had to dig through wrappers and yogurt drippings to find it. Not cool.

Unmet Expectations

This morning I brought Hazel with me to my ob/gyn appointment. She hasn't come with me to see the "baby doctor" in a few months. When we got to the waiting room, she turned to me, tilted her head to one side, and said matter-of-factly, "Doctor take Jack out. Out Mommy's tummy." I tried to explain to her that we've still got a few weeks until that happens, that we're just going to listen to Jack's heartbeat today and see how he's doing, but Hazel repeated her prognosis in front of the doctor. So... I'm guessing today's doctor's visit was a bit anti-climactic for her.

Hazel's Birthday

It's official. Todd and I are the parents of a two-year-old. After I put Hazel to bed and Todd and I made bets on whether or not she'd actually fall asleep, Todd said, "This was the best day of Hazel's life." She's had some pretty good days, but I'm thinking Todd's right. She has been excited about her birthday for weeks now, and it seemed like she loved just about everything about today.

For starters, she was standing up in bed when I peeked in to see if she was awake yet. Standing. Up. That was a first. Usually she's lying down twirling her hair, or sitting on the edge of the bed.

We had scrambled eggs and strawberry shakes for breakfast, two of her favorites. Then, per her request, we made a princess crown for her to wear in honor of her special day.
She soon noticed the "uffly cake" on the counter that I stayed up late last night finishing up. She has been very specific for nearly a month now (ever since we started talking about her birthday) that she wanted a pink butterfly cake for her birthday. Well, she got it. Her two favorite details about it were that it was pink, and that it had candy on it. She asked to be held up to look at it several more times throughout the day.
I think the best part of the day was that Todd was sick, so he stayed home from work. He spent the whole day sleeping on the couch, but it was still nice for Hazel to be able to go over and talk to him and give him kisses, and for him to be around for the whole day instead of just in the evening.

We spent the morning outside, riding Hazel's bike and playing at the park. It's been fairly cold and rainy for the last few weeks, so the nice weather today allowed us to enjoy being outside for the first time in a while. She was riding her bike so fast I almost couldn't keep up at a jog. And I will confess, jogging hurts my body just a wee bit right now. But it was all about Hazel today.

After lunch, we let Hazel open some of her presents. Lucky Ducks turned out to be a huge hit. It is a game with ducks who have shapes on their bottoms. They swim around the board in a circle, quacking up a noisy storm, and then each player picks up one duck and looks at the shape on it. You are each trying to collect all the ducks with your own shape on it. Hazel was super into it. It had cute ducks just the right size for her hands, and she's just starting to get interested in shapes, so I think it'll be a hit for a while.
Unfortunately, it was a bit too big of a hit today. Hazel spent two hours in her bedroom plotting what to do with her ducks when she got out and didn't sleep a wink during naptime. Usually she's a solid three-hour napper. Not so today. The second I told her she could come out of her room, she said, "My ducks!" and ran back to the kitchen table to play with them.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with toys and Daddy. I knew she was going to need to go to bed early, so the afternoon was short. She spent a good part of the next few hours lobbying phone calls and Skype visits from loving family members. And she helped me make teriyaki chicken for dinner, which she scarfed up. We're talking asking for seconds and even thirds!

Then we had cake - she did awesome at blowing her candles out - and opened the rest of her presents. Aunt Kelsi made her day (and, I'm sure, the rest of the week) with a box full of princess supplies. Very soon after dinner, as she began having meltdown after meltdown, we turned on the bathwater and went through our bedtime routine. She was wired. Wired and tired. It took both Todd and me to hold her still enough to even get her pajamas on.

At the very end, she lay in bed while I sang to her. Her heavy eyes drooped shut, and I thought, "She'll be out in two minutes." But then she pried them back open and whispered, "Birthday. Uffly cake." and grinned at me as her eyes twinkled. Good grief.

That was 45 minutes ago. I haven't heard a peep from her, so I'm hoping the Sleep Fairy won tonight's battle. I'll go check after I post this. But I sure am pleased that she loved her birthday so much.

Easy Baby Book

When Hazel was born, Todd's sister Laura gave me one of the best gifts ever thought of - a beautiful and simple, ready-to-fill baby book. It had a cover page with Hazel's name on it, and then each two-page spread after that was dedicated to one of the first twelve months of Hazel's life. Laura had already done all the cutesy paper/sticker/doo-hickey decorating and had it all ready to go so that all I had to do each month was print out one 5x7 picture of Hazel and fill in a 3x5 card with sweet details of Hazel highlights. It was so easy for me to stay up to date, despite being a tired and sometimes sad single mom with a husband overseas and a baby with a clubfoot that required so much attention. I am so thankful for that gift! It was all done a month or two after Hazel's first birthday, and now she loves to look through the "Hazel Book."
Another great thing about this baby book being so simple, is that it's completely do-able with the follow-up children. I just finished making Jack's. (I knew it had to happen before he comes for it to remain an "easy" project.) Not counting the time I spent shopping for supplies, I spent a grand total of about 4 hours putting the book together. Now it's ready to go when he gets here, and I know I'll be able to keep a record of at least the first year of his life. ;) I had to spread the news because I think these baby books are revolutionary!

Morro Bay Trip

On November 19th, Todd and I celebrated our six-year wedding anniversary.
We left Hazel with a neighbor and went on a casual date. First we picked up some pizza at Vito's Famous Pizza, a joint we've been told is run by the mafia. (!) We had to check it out. The pizza was delicious - New York style - but the place was a little strange. If you go, pay in cash. Just in case. Then we stood in line to watch the new Harry Potter movie on opening night.

The big celebration came this week, though. I'm too far along in my pregnancy to travel far, so we didn't get to go to Utah/see family for Thanksgiving. Todd still had two days off of work, and we opted to take a little trip to honor both the holiday and our anniversary. Once Todd got home on Wednesday afternoon, we piled up in the car and drove south to Morro Bay. We got there just in time to put Hazel to bed and silently read books by lamplight until we were ready to hit the sack.

Thursday we did some hiking and then spent an hour or two at Spooner's Cove in Montana de Oro State Park. What can I say, we gravitate toward the ocean whenever we can! We gathered rocks and threw them in the water. This was perhaps Hazel's favorite activity. We're just glad we found something she was willing to do with her rocks other than fill her pockets til her pants fell down (she's been known to do that before).
Todd and Hazel climbed some big rocks and saw this great view from the other side. I tried to follow them, but couldn't hack it with my rotund body shape and lack of balance.
We planned to have our "Thanksgiving dinner" at whatever restaurant happened to be open during the holiday. Unfortunately for us, it turned out Morro Bay is a small enough town that no one felt the need to stay open for lunch. We improvised at the grocery store and ended up with a white trash feast centered around a rotisserie chicken.
Friday we went to the very little Morro Bay Aquarium and threw fish to the barking seals inside. Hazel really liked that. Then we spent the rest of the morning kayaking around the bay. Hurray, that was a hit with H, too. Look how cute she was, gazing at the water, resting her arm on the kayak and her chin on her fist:
We got close to some seals and touched some kelp floating in the water, and we parked the kayak on a sandbar and hiked to the other side to hang out by the ocean again. When we got back to the mainland, we got some lunch, and then we drove home. Ah, a delightfully successful trip.

And tomorrow we pick up a Christmas tree! I'm stoked. Todd and I have only had a tree twice before. Just one of the small perks of being too pregnant to travel for the holidays, I suppose.

Today's Wish

I miss my old body. Can't I have it back? I'm not even going to be greedy. I'll take the one I had a year ago, post-baby, with the tummy chub (and the baby snot on my shoulder).
This one aches too much, weighs too much, itches too much, and is only going to get worse. I walk like a gimp and can't fit into some of my maternity clothes anymore. Six more weeks until my due date. I don't want a January baby anymore.
Although I still have to say thanks for no nightly heartburn or charley horses yet. I had both of those before this point when I was pregnant with Hazel, and I would be elated if they didn't pay me a visit this time around.

Weeklong Halloween Festivities

It didn't matter that Halloween landed on Sunday this year and we didn't go trick-or-treating last night. Hazel got plenty of bang for her buck all week long already.

She painted a pumpkin.
And sported her "uffly" costume for days. (It's a fairy costume that I found for five bucks at a fund raiser, but she's convinced it's a butterfly wearing a dress. It's all good.)
We went trick-or-treating Tuesday morning at a moms and tots activity held at an outdoor shopping mall in San Jose. Hazel spent literally every waking moment of the rest of the day sorting her candy.
Most of the rest of the week has been candy-sorting as well, and as you may notice from the remainder of the photos, she firmly held on to a sucker bouquet no matter what else she was doing. The pumpkin basket has gone with us pretty much everywhere, as well.
And we went to our church's Halloween party, where Hazel ate great food, played fun games, and scored more candy during a trunk-or-treat.
We ditched the uffly costume so we could do a family theme, and went as bunny rabbits. It was supposed to be funny because I'm pregnant, but I don't think it really worked all that well since our litter is still so small.
But the tails sure were a hit! (Yes, Todd and I had them, too. I wish I had asked someone to take a group shot of them.)

"Arm, owie. I no like it."

Hazel's registered for a toddler gym class we attend weekly. She LOVES it. It is unbelievable how much she runs around and moves and jumps in there. It is awesome to watch what she can do as she balances on horizontal ladders, jumps on tramps, tosses herself down slides and takes very literal advantage of the fact that the whole room is padded. My only concern is that she's likely to barrel over one of her classmates, who are all pretty small and wobbly on their feet. (This course ends next week, and I signed her up again, but this time with the 2-3 year olds. Hopefully she will be less of a danger to the other kids there!)
Todd came to watch for the first time yesterday, and I was so thankful he was there, because we actually ended up with quite an ordeal. At the end of class, we were playing under a parachute during circle time, and Hazel was super hyped up and running under it and throwing herself into my arms. (I think she was a teensy bit thrilled that Daddy was there to watch - she's not normally wild during circle time.) At one point, she ran away from me and thought she was headed for the cupboards to stop (couldn't see them, as they were hidden by the parachute) but hit dead air and fell forwards on her extended arms.

After that, she held her left arm with her right hand and cried quite a bit. She's usually really tough, and almost always hops right up after a tumble. If not, a kiss and a two-second hug is about all she wants before she's back to playing. But this time she just sat in Todd's arms and cried and would not be consoled. Also, she refused to let go of her arm to let us take a good look at it.

I didn't know what to do, because we just got on new insurance with Todd's new job and I haven't picked a pediatrician for Hazel, and I didn't know where the hospital was or anything. Todd made some phone calls and got Hazel an appointment in 45 minutes with a pediatrician at the medical offices in the hospital, and found out the address. He had to go back to work, so we strapped Hazel into her carseat as best we could with her refusing to let go of her arm and I took her to the appointment.

The doctor determined that she needed x-rays, so down to radiology we went. We waited to get in for a full hour, and then when we finally did get in, the technician realized he couldn't get Hazel in the positions he needed her arm in unless she was sitting higher, on someone's lap, and I couldn't do it because I'm pregnant. We tried for a few minutes to see if there was any way we could make it work, and poor Hazel put her head down on her arm and cried the saddest tears of all. Then I called Todd at work and asked him to come and help us out. Twenty minutes later, he was there.

Sitting outside that radiology room, listening to Hazel scream in pain, was one of my least favorite moments as a mother. I wished so bad I could be at her side, especially when I heard her calling for me. I'm crying again now thinking about it. Horrendous.

Then back to the pediatrician. Todd stayed with us. By this point, it was 2:30 or 3:00, hours past naptime and neither of us had had lunch. All I had to give Hazel was more of her morning snack crackers, and she was so sick of them. The blessed nurse asked if Hazel had had anything to eat, and brought her a little can of apple juice and a straw. Todd asked her if she wanted to hold her drink herself, and for the first time since 9:50 that morning, Hazel voluntarilly let go of her arm and held the juice can in both hands. She kept saying, "I like it, juice," and I was so thankful to see her look a little bit happy. Within a few more minutes, she had perked right up and was really using her arm again.

The x-rays came back negative, meaning they didn't show anything amiss. No broken bones or anything, thankfully. Some poking, prodding, questioning and observing later, and it was determined that Hazel had had what's called nursemaid's elbow (a dislocated elbow) and that it was now back in place. We are convinced Todd pulled it back into position when he was moving her arm around for the x-rays.

Back home at 3:30, Hazel fell asleep in the car and napped until 5, which is when my rockstar husband came home from work - an hour earlier than usual. He really took over yesterday and saved me from having a breakdown. He bathed Haz and put her to bed that night, and when she was still awake and cranky at 10:00 (practially unheard of!), he went in and sang to her and soothed her to sleep.

Yesterday made me grateful that this was our first rush to the hospital for Hazel despite her huge energy level, that her arm is good again and she's no longer in pain, that the angel nurse brought her apple juice, and that I married the best man in the universe.

Some of the Bonners visit the Bonners

Last weekend, Todd's parents, Larry and Ellen, and brother KB came out for a visit. We had a great time:

Buying produce at the local European market, the Milk Pail

Eating out, trying Chinese, Vietnamese, and seafood

Renting and watching what was probably the dumbest movie in the Redbox, "The Losers"

Going to the pumpkin patch
Tide-pooling at Half Moon Bay, where Hazel shamelessly broke the "no collection buckets" rule
and KB stepped on a dead seal and didn't realize it until it sunk in under his feet - ha ha!
Attending a Santa Clara University soccer game, where the highlight was when the goalie for the other team ran all the way across the field and made the goal that tied the game, all while a girl a couple rows over from us was shouting, "What are you doing, Max? You're going the wrong way!"

Checking out the migrating Monarch butterflies at National Bridges in Santa Cruz

Making our now-traditional pumpkin soup for dinner

And playing such a raucous game of Uno that we were all crying while laughing and I wet my pants just a little bit.

Fun times. Thanks for the visit!

Mount Shasta Trip

Todd starts a new job today. Hooray! Hopefully this one will mesh work and family time a little better than what we've been living with the past 9 months. In celebration, Todd took a week off between jobs, my mom came out to watch Hazel, and Todd and I took off for a trip, just the two of us, up through northeastern California.

Monday we drove up towards Mount Shasta, stopping along the way for a tour of Shasta Caverns on Shasta Lake. As interesting as stalagmites and -tites are, we couldn't stop thinking it would be more fun if Hazel were with us. The three other people on the tour (it's so great traveling during the off-season!) were pretty strange, and they f-r-e-a-k-e-d out when they saw a squirrel. "Stop the bus, a squirrel!" "Oh, look at its fluffy tail!" I guess they don't have squirrels in Phoenix. We see ten a day easy from our front window. They're pretty common in Northern California.
We then journeyed the rest of the way to the city of Mount Shasta, where we relaxed at our bed and breakfast, Shasta Mountain Retreat and Spa. Apparently the owner is a certified massage therapist. The whole place had a very new-agey feel to it. Foot and calf massage machines in the "relaxation room," vegan banana bread on the kitchen counter, bath salts in our (fabulous) whirlpool tub, the works. It turns out the whole town is super hippy. We couldn't believe how many natural foods stores and restaurants there were, nor how many people were walking around looking like they conserved water by declining to shower. We rested up, but were restless to get out of town by mid-morning the next day. Funny.

Todd had dreams of hiking to the 14,162 foot summit of Mount Shasta, a feat with no trail and recommendations of crampons and ice picks. Sadly, his pregnant wife held him back, and we opted instead to just take the scenic drive that wound around the mountain as we made our way to our next destination.
We stopped instead at McCloud River Falls, a waterfall with three cascades that flowed into a chilly pool. The hike down only took ten minutes, which was just about right for me. As we were making this trip off-season, there wasn't another soul around when we got there. And so we may or may not have skinny dipped. (And I might or might not have an incriminating picture of Todd.)
Our accomodations decreased in luxury as the week progressed. Night two found us at McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, where we camped in a heated cabin equipped with bunk beds and foam mattresses. It actually turned out to be our ideal camping situation. We picked berries by the lake, made tin-foil dinners and s'mores over a campfire, put two mattresses together on the floor and were able to snuggle all night (I started to write "spoon all night," then realized my belly doesn't really let us do that anymore...), and even got to take hot showers in the morning, 50 cents for 5 minutes. I took one for 10. Delectable. There was room in the cabin for a pack and play and more. If Todd and I DO camp again in the future, this is how we plan to do it. Hazel would have totally adored it, and we so could have done it with a baby, too.
We checked out the McArthur-Burney Falls from the overlook the next morning while sipping hot chocolate. The quick path down was closed for renovations, and we bypassed the long hike due to my "condition," so this is all we saw of these magnificent, 129-foot falls. They were still breathtaking, but alas, no opportunity to swim in the emerald pool. Wink, wink.
We stopped for lunch at a little diner we found in the middle of nowhere and were tempted to buy some leatherwork art by "Cactus Jack." Then on to Subway Cave, a 2,000-year-old lava tube that you can walk through for a quarter of a mile. This was super cool. The ground was all bumpy from the pumice stone and it was dark and cold so we had to bundle up and wear headlamps. Again, we were the only people in there. Made for some freedom to goof off. Whoever named the different features in the cave had a great sense of humor. We paused to take a menacing picture in "Lucifer's Cul-de-sac." My loud laugh echoed off the walls.
We then entered Lassen Volcanic National Park, where we had a Yellowstone-like experience. We took a short hike to Cold Boiling Lake, where the water was cold but gases made the water bubble anyway. Todd made us some sweet walking sticks. We actually hit a crowd of school kids on a field trip, and overhead at least 10 kids wishing they had walking sticks like us hikers. They were covetable! Then we drove over to an area called Sulphur Works and saw a sweet mud pot which is right by the road. Ah, treasure without the work!
That night we camp-camped, for reals, in a tent. Thankfully, again, almost no one was around, so we were able to wander through the campsites and find the one with the flattest spot for a tent, close but not too close to the bathrooms. I wish we had taken a picture of our campsite, but I think I was too paranoid about sleeping badly and being cold to even think of getting out our camera. Our roasted hot dogs were juicy and we even popped popcorn over the fire. We stayed by said fire for as long as we could (ie until we ran out of firewood and it died down) reading Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express aloud. Todd mocked me every time I went to our bag for another layer of clothes, but I was so afraid of being cold overnight and didn't see any reason why I had to be cold before the middle of the night.

It turned out to be fine, though. We slept on a queen-size air mattress that didn't even leak air during the night, with a fleece beneath us and three heavy blankets and two opened sleeping bags on top. My fleece hat fell off once in the middle of the night and I definitely woke up with a cold head, and of course I tossed and turned most of the night, keeping Todd up and neither of us got a good night's rest, but hey, at least we were warm! Well, I was warm. Turns out layers do make a difference. Todd admitted he was a little chilly, and I was like, "You could have put on your sweatshirt, dear."

The next day we hiked Bumpass H-e-double-hockey-sticks, which is THE hike you must do if you come here looking for volcanic delights. It was only a mile and a half in, and led you to an 18-acre area filled with mud pots, steam vents, and bubbling pools. There were signs everywhere warning you to stay on the boardwalk, as Bumpass himself lost a leg when he stepped through the ground into one of the thermal pools back in the 1800's. It was cool.
We returned home smelling of sulphur and campfire, excited to sleep in our own bed, and begging for hugs and kisses from Hazel, who we missed and talked about way too much during the week.

And now we are just crossing our fingers, hoping Todd's new job is worthy of celebration after all.